Jean Cocteau Rep has once again enlisted the services of critic playwright-translator Eric Bentley, and once again the partnership has proved successful. In the past, the Off-Off-Broadway classics company has presented Bentley's translations of Brecht's A Man's a Man and Mother Courage and Buchner's Woyzeck and Leonce and Lena. Now, Cocteau is staging his version of Brecht's Edward II. The production, which was to have ended on April 20, has added performances and extended until May 4.

Jean Cocteau Rep has once again enlisted the services of critic playwright-translator Eric Bentley, and once again the partnership has proved successful. In the past, the Off-Off-Broadway classics company has presented Bentley's translations of Brecht's A Man's a Man and Mother Courage and Buchner's Woyzeck and Leonce and Lena. Now, Cocteau is staging his version of Brecht's Edward II. The production, which was to have ended on April 20, has added performances and extended until May 4.

Brecht's play takes as its topic the same king found at the center of Christopher Marlowe's better-known play by that name. The 1924 work came into being when Brecht, wishing to direct Marlowe's play but not liking the translation, penned his own script. Edward II begins with the death of the king's father, Edward Longshanks. The new royal's first move is to recall his banished lover, Piers Gaveston, thus firing the ire of the English barony over Edward's rule.